In a surprising move, Hindu Business Line
seems to have removed an article from its internet issue within
hours of its publication.

"The article titled IIM prof loses Rs 18 lakhs to SMS fraud"
which seems to have been first published on October 24 under the
section Industry and Economy seems to have been removed by the
publication.

The article was captured by Internet search
engines as shown below but the links were not working. (See
screen shots below)

Was the article removed because it was wrong? or because it was
objected to by some body? Was the provision of Section 79 of ITA
2008 invoked and Business line responded? are issues which need
discussion.

If the article has been removed based on an objection raised
under Sec 79 of ITA 2008, it will create an important precedent
which will be quoted in the Courts of law in future when other
publications donot respond so swiftly.

Further though BL could not remove the print version of the
article and had an option to post a rejoinder on the internet
version, why did BL took the drastic step of removing the
article in a hurry?

The article itself does not have any objectionable content. It
only has a quote of the Banking Ombudsman of Karnataka stating
that RBI has mandated that he and his team shall visit rural
areas to explain the benefits of the Banking Ombudsman scheme.
(Also read:
Banking Ombudsman Scheme is set to fail: ).

If at all there is any objection it should be to the quote on
the IIM professor. The unprecedented move also opens up
questions on where was the mistake? Is it possible that the
report is wrong ?

If the report is wrong, was Mr Palanisamy wrong in his
statement? or the reporter of BL who was in the wrong?

It was surprising that the Banking Ombudsman made a reference to
a Phishing fraud to promote his role as Banking Ombudsman. There
have been instances where Banking Ombudsmen in other places have
come to the aid of Phishing victims. But Mr Palanisamy is one
Banking Ombudsman who is known to be refusing to take up
complaints involving Phishing types of frauds under the
technical ground that " Examination of elaborate Evidence is
required". Hence Bank customers with complaints are unlikely to
get any relief with the Banking Ombudsman office in Bangalore.
For him to quote a phishing fraud was unnatural.

We have pointed out the response of the Bangalore Banking
Ombudsman in the complaint of Mr S Nagaraja regarding an ATM
fraud (Details
available here: ) which explains how the system failed to
come to the assistance of the Customer despite mistakes pointed
out in the Banking services.

Under these circumstances the BL article which gives the first
impression that cases of losses arising out of Phishing or
advance fee frauds could be solved under the Banking Ombudsman
scheme is misleading.

It would be better if Hindu Business Line comes up with its
reasoning of why the article was removed. It will fix the
responsibility on the publishing of the misleading article.